As I mentioned in my introduction, I've only been using the techniques from Tolle's books for about a year. However, I've been meditating, visualizing and having contact with higher self for some time. It wasn't until I started working with the Now that I came into an odd experience that I am curious to see if anyone else has also experienced? The question is somewhat two-fold.

I will begin to focus on my breathing, then I open up to the room or space around me. I relax further and "sink" into the Now. I do this quite often and it's become easier and easier over the past year. When I first started this I would feel a pressure in my chest, a heaviness, and my heart rate would increase. It almost seemed to amp up my anxiety, like my old self was wanting to resist and fight back. I was also going through a very stressful personal time as I left one job and moved on to another, better job. Eventually, these symptoms faded and I was able to meditate again without them arising.

Lately, interestingly enough, as I come up on my first year of doing this, the heaviness has returned. I find my mind and the feedback loop getting harder to control. Irrational fears spike from nowhere and my heart has again begun to beat fast while I am trying to be calm. Has anyone else experienced this?

Secondly, I do understand "temporal memory," that if a particular season or month held a wave of challenges and stress you might subconsciously remember that time period and your mind might want to re-create stress in those same periods. (November and December hold a battlefield of intense, stressful memories for me that go back over ten years.) Could this be it? How might it be addressed in meditation or practice? Is it a matter of just sitting with it as a witness as the time period brings up the past pain-body issues?

It's unlikely that life will ever be free of challenges. Consider that an inclusive approach to those challenges is more satisfying than one of resistance. There really is nothing wrong in life other than that we judge to be so. But judgment is a choice, although often a conditioned one, that we can give new meaning to if we choose to do so. New meaning brings a new experience. Our emotions will reflect back to us the quality of the meanings we apply - again, those from previous conditioning or those by conscious choice.

Rustus wrote:How might it be addressed in meditation or practice? Is it a matter of just sitting with it as a witness as the time period brings up the past pain-body issues?

Feel your way to clarity, especially during meditations. Meditation of course, can be done most anywhere, anytime. It's just a matter of sitting with a quiet and open mind, and resting in the nature of being. Feel the clear curiosity of the answers you seek, and allow insight to flow. While it may not come during the meditation itself, be alert as time passes. Insight comes in interesting ways.

But judgment is a choice, although often a conditioned one, that we can give new meaning to if we choose to do so. New meaning brings a new experience. Our emotions will reflect back to us the quality of the meanings we apply - again, those from previous conditioning or those by conscious choice.

Sorry for the delayed response and thank you for yours. I'll be chewing on the part above for quite awhile. Thank you, again, for it.

Last year at this time, I was under extraordinary amounts of stress. Perfectly enough, I was just learning some of ET's techniques which were incredibly helpful. I had another odd wave of anxiety this morning as I drove into work. It was irrational and I had a hard time staying "nonjudgemental" about it. As I told my wife (who was also experiencing something similar), "As I watch and observe these irrational, panicky thoughts and they way my heart has started racing I just want to laugh at it. It's so ridiculous. But.. that's judgemental and I'm trying to stay neutral to it." So, re-reading the above was particularly helpful!

Understand what I'm saying here. Judgment, most often, is the perspective that there is something 'wrong' with a condition or event - such as 'there is something wrong with the way I feel (anxiety) at the moment'. That perspective (that anything may be wrong at the moment) is the basis of anxiety. When we are in resistance, either consciously or unconsciously, we are clinching internally. This clinching restricts the flow of natural, joyful, life energy moving through us - and that just feels bad.

Giving a condition a new meaning that makes it more inclusive, thus relieving the resistance, would go something like: "It's okay that I feel this way, it's okay to feel resistance or fear". Explore then, the feeling of it being okay. Then choose that it is indeed okay. This gives it new meaning from resisting a perceived wrong to accepting and being okay with a natural feeling. Feel the difference. Once you actually feel a shift, acknowledge and appreciate the improvement and move on to something you enjoy. In other words count and enjoy your blessings. You are certainly worthy of joy, we all are. There are plenty of good things in life to consider. Find and explore yours.

I don't know the nature of your fears so I can't really tell what is best to do. Fear is in my opinion one of the central psychological issues in this life, the other being desire. Fear and lack.

I do think however, besides the observing, that right thinking regarding our fears is (or can be) along empathetic lines. When there is fear, empathy towards whatever the object of fear might be is a guide to right action. If we take no action and it is more correct to do something, then I would suggest thinking about what to do in an empathetic way so that observation doesnt become merely a hiding place: what does this situation or person I'm in a relation to really want/need from me, what is the nicest realistic thing I could ever do with regards to this situation. I think that thoughts of empathy can really heal fear and if we carry out the actions we consider right from such a perspective, the fear, the thought, the action, may become complete. It might mean doing some uncomfortable things, facing our fears, but might be worth for you to consider, if at all applicable to you situation.

In such a way I feel that at least I can break a lingering fear, which is mostly about my pain, and make it about healing or meeting 'the other' whatever it might be. Sometimes there is fear because we don't act.